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Chicago Cubs Promote Kris Bryant to AAA

June 18th, 2014 at 4:00 PM By Tim Duxbury

Its official, the Chicago Cubs promoted top prospect Kris Bryant to AAA Iowa today (per Matt Snyder of CBS Sports). The move doesn’t come as a surprise to most but the sight of progress is what is making Cubs fans everywhere get a little giddy. Bryant has been destroying AA pitching since day one of the 2014 season but the Cubs waited until now to finally give him the promotion due to the AA all-star break. Bryant had the week off from games (although he did participate in the all-star game and home run derby), so this was a natural point to move on. Bryant’s final line at AA is 22 home runs, 20 doubles, 58 RBI with a batting average of .358, OPB of .456 and slugging percentage of .701, all in just 68 games. Bryant led the Southern League in home runs, batting average, RBI and OPS (on base + slugging, 1.160).

The only question now is where will Bryant play at AAA? Bryant has played exclusively at third base since being drafted second overall last summer and in 93 games at the hot corner Bryant has made 20 errors, giving him an unimpressive .927 fielding percentage. Where Bryant plays in the field will be a good indication of how the Cubs major league lineup will shake out in the future. Many speculate the Bryant will eventually move to the outfield and with Christian Villanueva (the Cubs no. 11 prospect according to MLB.com) currently manning the hot corner for the Iowa Cubs, Bryant’s transition could begin this week. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

As for Bryant’s next promotion, the most probable timeline is that he will make an appearance in Chicago as a September call-up (assuming he performs well at AAA) and could be the Cubs’ everyday third baseman as soon as June of 2015.